Patricia Mou

The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, "ubunto." This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: "I am because we are; we are because I am."

There are numerous variations on these simple activities but the original intervention (Emmons and McCullough, 2003) consisted of taking time once per week to reflect upon five things in life that one was grateful for and writing these down, and then repeating this for ten consecutive weeks.

True belonging is always the product of co-construction. This requires mechanisms that: create buy-in, ensure people are and feel heard, facilitate collective decision making and error-correction.

I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.

Startups don't get built by watching startup advice videos on YouTube. They get built by doing the work. All you need is a laptop and a metrocard.

“As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to... See more

To some people, disagreements feel like conflict; they don’t have to be, and avoiding disagreements comes with a high price. It doesn’t have to feel bad to figure out where you might be wrong if you learn to disentangle your self-worth from your belief system.